Social media is the future of travel. While it won’t completely replace agents, it will be where holidaymakers go for travel inspiration and even find someone to help secure their next holiday.
In fact, according to Amadeus research, there’s going to be one entire group of holidaymakers that travel purely to share their holiday experiences online (they’re called the Social Capital Seeker).
Despite the importance of digital technology to tourism, Sydney TAFE says there is a shortage of travel professionals equipped with the information they need to survive the communication age.
To help counteract this, the tertiary outlet has teamed up with Tourism Tribe to offer a new unique way for its students to gain the online smarts and cater to the future needs of the industry.
The new specialist digital communication training will be available to Travel and Tourism students and is designed to give them the skills and confidence to ensure businesses embrace digital tools effectively over the coming years.
Among the things they’ll leave is using social media such as Facebook, Instagram and Pintrest to promote a business and attract new customers (or followers). They’ll also learn about optimising websites for mobile and making them search friendly while learning about traffic and driving site visitors to other platforms such as Facebook or Instagram.
Tourism Tribe CEO, Liz Ward, said the course is ‘simple’ and will help those who aren’t digital experts with the ability to make the most of the web for their businesses.
According to Sydney TAFE research, only around four percent of tourism businesses optimise their website for search capability and only one in two tourism websites are mobile friendly.
Earlier this year it was revealed that airlines are optimising Facebook the most and have over 1.2 million followers combined. This was followed by destinations, hotels and then media.
Meanwhile, media is leading the way on Twitter followed by airlines, hotels and destinations. Click here for more.
